Who Ruined Bengal

Mr Sudpta Sen was the chairman and managing director of Saradha, a business group built on a chit fund, the collapse of which has left lakhs and lakhs of people in West Bengal in the lurch. 

People who had put their hard earned savings into Mr Sen's chit fund on the promise of abnormally high returns. Now, the chit fund has gone bust and he is on the run. 
 
Very little is known about Sudipta Sen. He is in his mid-fifties, a reclusive man, described by people as soft spoken and charming. Some say he is the son of a man called Bhudeb Sen, who used to run a chit fund called Sanchayani in the 1980s and which went bust 10 years ago.  The Saradha chit fund was launched in 2006. There are others who say that Mr Sen emphatically denies any link to Bhudub or Sanchayani.
 
It is rumoured that Sudipta Sen had plastic surgery done in the 1990s to change his looks. The why - if at all - is not clear. Even though he headed a media empire, which included at least 10 newspapers and TV channels, Mr Sen shunned cameras. 
 
Now his permanent residence is Jail but It is not even known where he lived. He is believed to own at least five houses in Kolkata's elite Salt Lake area alone.  West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said she had heard Mr Sen had three wives.

Debjani Mukherjee, the lady who joined Saradha Group as a receptionist sometime between 2007 and 2008, became an executive director of the company that has defrauded lakhs of depositors in West Bengal.

Within no time, she became the only access key to group chairman and managing director Sudipta Sen. Local sources said Debjani's life started undergoing a change after she joined the group in 2007 at the Shakespeare Sarani branch. Always seen clad in expensive saris, Debjani became one of the most powerful names in the company.

She also used to stay with the chairman till late at night during confidential meetings. "She was the second-in-command at the office. She used to be with Sen everywhere," a senior employee of the chit fund company said.

According to sources, Debjani became popular in the Dhakuria area for spending a lot of money. She was also involved with a small puja committee near Dhakuria post office and with her help the budget of the committee reached `5 lakh during last year's Durga puja. "Debjani's meteoric rise was quite mysterious. We saw her selling pickle door-to-door with her mother Sarbari. She belonged to a business family which was at one point quite well-off because of its oil business. But the company collapsed and her father Timir started working in a small shop," sources said.

It is believed that even the family was in the dark about Debjani's source of income. Sources said she had invested money in real estate as well and bought a luxurious flat in the locality.

In a letter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that was redirected to the Bidhanangar Police Commissionerate, Sen alleged that two TMC Rajya Sabha MPs including Kunal Ghosh, CEO of Saradha’s media wing, were major beneficiaries.

In the letter dated April 10,2013 a day before he left Kolkata, Sen alleged that he not only paid hefty sums to TMC leaders, but also an influential Congress leader in Assam and wife of a senior Congress minister in the Centre, police sources said.

In the 18-page letter, a copy of which was also sent to Sebi, Sen alleged that a business lobby close to the TMC government had “forced” him to take over a loss-making motorcycle manufacturing unit in Polba near Singur, which further aggravated Saradha group’s financial woes.

The letter also mentions 22 people who allegedly “used” Sen to make money. The list includes at least five political leaders.